ICT Driven Platform for High-Quality Virtual Contents Creation and Sharing with e-Tourism Purposes. The Interreg IT-HR REMEMBER Project Paolo Clini Emanuele Frontoni Ramona Quattrini Universitá Politecnica delle Marche Universitá Politecnica delle Marche Universitá Politecnica delle Marche Ancona, Italy Ancona, Italy Ancona, Italy p.clini@staff.univpm.it e.frontoni@staff.univpm.it r.quattrini@staff.univpm.it Romina Nespeca Roberto Pierdicca Universitá Politecnica delle Marche Universitá Politecnica delle Marche Ancona, Italy Ancona, Italy r.nespeca@staff.univpm.it r.pierdicca@staff.univpm.it ABSTRACT to start a new agenda in sharing responsibilities and opportunities This paper describes REMEMBER, an EU project which aims at coming from tangible and intangible cultural heritage. According establishing a network for joint valorization of 8 ports in Italy and to this idea, the authors of the present paper participate in an Inter- Croatia, trying to shift the paradigm of touristic flows toward a sus- reg project, REMEMBER (REstoring the MEmory of Adriatic ports tainable tourism. The key point is an innovative ICT architecture, sites. Maritime culture to foster Balanced tErritorial growth) that modular and scalable, to share information at different system levels aims to develop a joint valorization of a network of 8 ports in Italy of detail and fruition, with an interoperable and multi-channel ap- and Croatia, trying to shift the paradigm and the touristic flows proach. Given its flexibility, contents can be conveniently displayed toward a sustainable tourism 1. A key point is the development in different ways: Web portals, fixed installations, mobile devices etc. This infrastructure enables a great number of Digital Experi- ences (DEs) that can be exploited at both global and local scale. Since the project is on going, the paper presents a first overview of the instantiate methodology, as well as briefly introduces the DEs that are currently designed and, finnaly, reports a prospective outlook related to the post-pandemic scenario. CCS CONCEPTS • Information and Communication Technologies → Virtual Museums; Tourism; • eXtended Reality → Digital Cultural Her- itage. KEYWORDS Virtual Museum, Digital Cultural Heritage, ICT, e-Tourism ACM Reference Format: Paolo Clini, Emanuele Frontoni, Ramona Quattrini, Romina Nespeca, and Roberto Figure 1: The network of the REMEMBER project. The au- Pierdicca. 2020. ICT Driven Platform for High-Quality Virtual Contents thority ports, the Adriatic sea as the common identity cul- Creation and Sharing with e-Tourism Purposes. The Interreg IT-HR RE- MEMBER Project. In Proceedings of 𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020: Workshop on Advanced tures and their digital links with the new Virtual Museums. Visual Interfaces and Interactions in Cultural Heritage (𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 4 pages. and exploitation of a cloud-based platform, allowing the important feature of the cross-border collaboration among partners and fac- 1 INTRODUCTION ing the challenges that are endangering the integrity and the same Digital tools have demonstrated to be an enabling process, not a existence of the Adriatic maritime cultural heritage. REMEMBER solution [7]. As several experts in digital humanities, economic VM is expected to increase the attractiveness of local economies operators, private touristic stakeholder testify digital is a stimulus using ICT for the digitalization of cultural contents, growing the touristic offers to reduce tourism seasonality and create new and qualified jobs linking digital and cultural competences. As research 𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020, September 29, Island of Ischia, Italy unit we serve as domain expert and advisors, thanks to previously © Copyright 2020 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). carried out experiences [2] [1] for the development of Virtual Muse- ums for 8 Adriatic Italian and Croatian ports sites (Ancona, Venice, 𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020, September 29, Island of Ischia, Italy Paolo Clini et al. Trieste, Ravenna, Rijeka, Zadar, Dubrovnik, Split). The main goal is to promote the valorisation of the important maritime cultural heritage of more competitive and balanced development paths in the programme area. Another key aspect is constituted by the digi- talization: both tangible and intangible cultural heritage is involved in a digitalization process in order to guarantee a huge and sig- nificant data collection for exploitaiton and preservation of the involved ports identity. In fact, preservation is a mandatory step for promotion, as well as those action are a form of projection beyond the current state, to the future development directions [6]. The port- maritime intangible cultural heritage is continuously recreated by the community. Fixing this aspect means to recover and enhance the relation between ports and cities, by linking the present with the Figure 2: ADRIJO cloud-based platform. The same digital past. This double-faced view remarks origins of port-cities identity contents are used for the different digital experiences (DEs). and its richness in terms of culture, works, productions, investments The user of ADRIJO have an active role for the production and how the port system is still operating as an engine for the local and fruition of the DEs. community. The ports operating in the project share a territorial proximity with a consequent common background and sense of belonging resulting from the commercial and social relationships between the two Adriatic shores. Those concepts are condensed metadata for both experts/non-experts). Moreover, the architec- in the brand of the Network and in its name: ADRIJO. Adrijo joins ture allows different kind of users to manage and maintain it in the Adriatic Sea. It combines the Italian word ADRIATICO with the a simple, fast and secure way. Particular attention is paid to the Croatian word JADRANSKO. The new brand constitutes an inven- integration of the information. In fact, while populating the data tion, it is the result of a cognitive and creative process, the result of base, different stakeholders, as well as heterogeneous data, can a linguistic construction that unites, by mean of the language, the be involved. The key value of the whole project is that the ICT two shores. system is able to convey information at different scales, providing the users with updated contents; at the same time, administrators can constantly monitor its performances, being able to infer useful 2 METHODOLOGY information about tourists’ needs, habits and preferences [3, 5]. The The mainstream upon which will be built the exploitation of RE- main features of the system can be summarized as follows: MEMBER project is an innovative ICT architecture. It is modular and scalable, representing an important communication system • creation of the single cloud-based architecture that allows that facilitates all the stakeholders involved in the project to exploit the management of multiple multimedia contents, to be ex- many kinds of information at different system levels of detail and ploited in various platform; fruition. It allows to manage multiple information with an interop- • development of the unique content management system for erable and multi-channel approach. Given its flexibility, contents all stakeholders to share cultural information; can be conveniently displayed in different ways: Web portals, fixed • monitoring user’s preferences and needs by collecting users’ installations (totems, digital signage), mobile devices (smartphones generated data and tablets) etc. The final goal, will be to create a great number of Digital Experiences that can be exploited at both global and local 2.2 Data scale. Such Digital Experiences will be built on the backbone of the The architecture assures efficiency in the management of context- cloud service, and in particular relying on three main items: aware services, analysing data arising from different experiences. • content, such as texts, images, photos, audio-visual contents, The cloud platform will be able to offer a great number of IT services, 3D models, diagnostic data; relying on two mutual task: from the one hand, the managing of • equipment, namely hardware and software components; information about Heritage and, from the other, allows the single • technology development deployment of the experience, instruments to exchange data in an interoperable way. The platform considering the adaptation to the different devices, according is designed for managing heterogeneous data, with the aim of to the type of desired experience. enabling all the stakeholders to contribute with their own content. As such, the system enables: The big picture of the developed framework is depicted in Figure 2 • the integrated management of data and resources to ensure the integration and cooperation of the technologies used in 2.1 Cloud Based platform the platform; The architecture is developed following the cloud-based services • the management of levels of interoperability between appli- paradigm, with the aim of creating a long-term and linked open cations and services present at different levels of the plat- data platform, designed for CH-related repositories. This approach form; allows interoperability between different platforms (on site, on- • the management of rules according to the context of appli- line, mobile) and between different users (augmented usability of cation and user typology. ICT driven platform for high-quality virtual contents creation and sharing with e-tourism purposes 𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020, September 29, Island of Ischia, Italy 2.3 Digital Experiences merging also AR Vision-based tracking, as summarized in Figure 3. The use of digital technologies plays an essential role in the creation Firstly the user receives an overview of the surrounding area of the of highly evocative and engaging products and installations, which POIs, in fact after framing a QR code or the Adrijo logo, an auto- allow visitors to learn about cultural heritage and sites through matic play of the introductory video of POI is foreseen. Then, the more stimulating, emotional and interactive experiences. However, device tracks camera pose by detecting and recognising geometric the design of digital technologies requires a strategic vision that features in the real environment to establish 3D world and 2D image allows to place the technological element in a coherent plan of com- coordinate correspondences. This approach can provide realistic munication of identities, memories and cultural contents, starting real-time camera pose tracking. However, rendering virtual objects from a clear identification of the objectives and aims of the inter- over the real environment could be slow due to the large amount ventions. These different approaches, which may also intersect or of processing required. Considering this fact, we are planning to overlap, have to enhance the cultural asset/site in a user-centred use AR only to displace tags that link to videos or VR experiences. perspective. The Digital Experiences allowed by the project are briefly summarised in the Figure 2. In addition, it should be pointed out that the ADRIJO platform already enables interactive and engaging Digital Experiences. Ev- ery innovation and research action is successful and achieve an important impact, if it establishes good connections with interested researcher and user communities. The web platform plays a fun- damental role in exchanging information, keeping up to date with the latest developments and disseminating the results. Nowadays, this can be best achieved through digital channels and social media exploiting the advantage of being able to present information to a diverse group of people at the same time and on demand. It can not only provide basic information that is static but also deliver reoccurring and constantly changing pieces of information. The Figure 3: ADRIJO cloud-based platform. The same digital web-platform will enable users to look for specific content on the contents are used for the different digital experiences (DEs). website and/or on mobile applications. All contents developed by The user of ADRIJO have an active role for the production the partners during the project will be made accessible on both and fruition of the DEs. the website and the mobile application. A major challenge in the development of the platform, that is currently under design phase and usability validation, is the multi scale approach to the Adrijo 3 PROSPECTIVE OUTLOOK Heritage. In fact, the platform will contain contents covering the 8 The pandemic scenario depicted new challenges for virtual muse- ports of the Adriatic sea and, if necessary, the hinterland and it can ums curators, in fact the COVID-19 outbreak has underlined the be visited remotely, i.e. in geographical locations far from the POIs. critical importance of digital access to cultural heritage. In this light, In this case, Adrijo will propose all the contents with a keywords- because the REMEMBER partnership is currently instantiating its based strategy, within the geographical interface. On the other main tool and gate, that is the Adrijo platform, the idea of putting hand, if the platform will be used in one of the ports, the platform it at disposal to a new plethora of stakeholder seems particularly will react responsibly to the geographical coordinate of the mobile interesting. Considering the turning point in which all European device, proposing firstly content closer to the user. In this way it countries need to democratise access to our heritage in order to will also automatically become the local version of the VM, trying support diversity, inclusivity, creativity, and critical engagement to maximize the usability of the interface and not requiring the user in education and knowledge sharing [4], the already outputs fore- to use too many menus and steps. In addition it is worth to mention seen by the project should be very important. The REMEMBER that the database manages Virtual Tour (by panoramic images or partnership and the new Adrjio network should assess new ex- 360° videos also taken by drones), offering a simple but efficient perimentation in strengthening the capacity for innovation and tool to visit the spaces. It consists in the panoramic photos (scene) promoting the use of digital technology and expertise, improving linked together, visible at 360° in immersive mode, and enriched by our cultural institutions role in telling our European stories. In par- other metadata (popup), e.g. texts, sounds, HD images and videos. ticular it is mandatory to constitute permanent networks in which A simple graphic interface allows to enjoy the 360 experience for public institutions cooperate and involve the private sector in digi- all users, also not experts or not digital-friendly users (e.g. google tising cultural material, in order to increase online accessibility of maps, with few control and global icon). When it is possible, the European cultural heritage and boost growth in Europe’s creative virtual tour would have a marked map where the 360 view hotspots industries [8]. . are shown. This allows to move in the interested panoramic photo, skipping the obligatory path. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS For the development of DE in the local level of the VM, in partic- ular in Ancona VM, the UNIVPM unit is analyzing and studying the The project here presented is funded under the Interreg IT-HR adaptation of an hybrid form of geo-located contents displacement, programme 2019-2021, Application ID 10042741. The content of this document reflects only the author’s view and the Programme 𝐴𝑉 𝐼 2𝐶𝐻 2020, September 29, Island of Ischia, Italy Paolo Clini et al. Authorities are not liable for any use that can be made of the infor- project. In Handbook of research on emerging digital tools for architectural surveying, mation in it included. modeling, and representation. IGI Global, 579–606. [4] European Commission. 2011. Recommendation of 27 October 2011 on the digitisation and online accessibility of cultural material and digital preservation. 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